Royal Caribbean cruise line - Vison of the Seas

We are back after a wonderful, peaceful, active, interesting, historic, gourmet holiday onboard Vision of the Seas. The best cruise ever.

We boarded her in Frihamnen, Stockholm by noon Thursday in a weather that held 30C and sunshine. We went directly to Windjammer café for lunch since we couldn't get in our cabin until 1PM. We had a wonderful lunch and then down to our cabin which was a junior suite. What a suite! Huge balcony almost like a terrace, big room with doublebed and separate space with sofas, chair and table and of course TV with a lot of channels including film channel with the latest movies. Not that we had time to watch them :-). Also a huge bathroom since we had a cabin for disabled thus having this bathroom with space for a wheelchair.

Afterwards we went to pooldeck and I had a swim in the nice warm pool and then sunbath. It felt more like Caribbean than Sweden.
We set sail at 5PM and started our journey to Tallin.
At dinner, which we had at 6PM every night, we had a lovely table by the window. Our waiter Bryan was from India and very friendly. Our headwaiter from Poland and assistant waiter from Philippines. Really international. They had crew members from 55 countries on board.
After dinner we had an hour to spend, every night, before the show started. The first night it was Boogie wonderland, then we had a magician from Australia, a musical night a joggler and farewell show. Every show was great except for the joggler from Holland. He dropped things all the time.

For 2 nights we sat alone by our table but the 3rd night we were joined by a very nice couple from Newcastle, Lawrence and Denise. The had been eating in the Windjammer the nights before but we really hit it off. You know me I'm a chatterbox and they were also very easy to talk to. What's more is that Lawrence had the same disease as Hasse, RA, and they talked about that and Hasse was given tips about medications.
The strange thing about the ship was that a majority was Swedish or Norwegian but, and I was not the only one reacting to this, they didn't talk to other people. Before when we have been on cruises we are used to people saying Hi, good morning or whatever when you meet them but not here. That's why Denise and Lawrence asked what is the matter. Also another Denise and her husband from London that I met said the same thing. I was the only one they have talked to on the entire cruise. That is not good behaviour for us. I don't know why either because normally when Swedes go abroad and get some alcohol they talk a lot but not here. Strange.

Anyway we went on excursions both in Tallin and also in St Petersburg. Tallin is a beautiful city and we had a very nice guide. She wasn't any good when she showed the things she was to show but when she talked freely and personally about the Estonian history and how it had effected her it was so good and very moving.
In St Petersburg the buildings were beautiful and exceeded my expectations. The weather could have been better because it rained a lot when we did our tour. Our guide, Irina, said that they only had 50-60 sundays A YEAR! Can you believe that?

We are very satisfied with the whole cruise and I'm sure we will be back on Royal some day soon. Cruising is a wonderful way of travelling and you really get pampered.

I enclose some photos and hopefully a videoclip. Enjoy.